Many multi-way video conferencing applications display the video streams of the various participants in a window with a static layout, and may partition the available space on the screen fairly equally among participants. Many layouts are presently used for multi-way video conferencing applications to display the video streams of the various participants in a window. One layout is N-up, which partitions the window into N planar surfaces of equal size. Other video conferencing applications may arrange transformed surfaces in a window. For example, a chat application may feature a three-dimensional view that arranges participants as if they were sitting around a conference-room table.
In video conferences with many participants, it may become difficult to perceive a speaker as a display screen becomes crowded and views of individual persons become small. Also, many networks have bandwidth limitations which may be exceeded by transmitting a number of video streams above a certain size. Thus, there exists a need for video conference displays that effectively utilize bandwidth and display area to emphasize important information and views.